Apple says iPhone 6s battery failures are caused by ‘ambient air’ exposure

Regardless of whether or not you like the iPhone, you have to admit Apple’s hardware has always been impeccably well designed. Its phones feel extremely high-quality, but the last few years have been marred by several high-profile hardware defects. First was “touch disease,” which Apple refused to acknowledge for ages, and now there’s the unexpected shutdown issue. The company has started a recall program for the shutdown problem, and it has a vague explanation of the cause: The affected batteries were exposed to air.

Reports of battery issues with the iPhone 6s started popping up in recent months, but these aren’t the same sort of issues Samsung saw with the Note 7. The iPhone 6s doesn’t explode, it just sort of turns itself off unexpectedly when there’s significant charge still left. There are various reasons a phone might shut down, such as to protect the hardware from damage. This seemed to be completely random, though. It took time for Apple to recognize the issue and offer customers some alternative other than paying for a costly repair.

Apple recently launched a recall program for the iPhone 6s that allows those affected to have their phone battery replaced free of charge. It also posted a very basic explanation of the issue on its Chinese website. Apparently one of the battery components used in phones manufactured during October 2015 was exposed to “controlled ambient air” longer than is should have been. I suppose that means it was left out in the open for too long? Maybe we’re dealing with some sort of oxidation of a part. At any rate, this causes the battery to age faster than normal, which leads to unexpected shutdowns.

There’s a web page on Apple’s US site that lets you check if your iPhone 6s is part of the affected batch. This is important because only the phones manufactured during this window are eligible for the free battery replacement. Alas, some owners with phones manufactured after October 2015 are also seeing unexpected shutdowns. Apple even admits this at the end of the press release.

So, what about those poor souls stuck with non-covered devices that shut down unexpectedly? For now, they’re out of luck. Apple is planning to investigate the issue further with the aid of an upcoming OTA update for iOS 10. The new software will send telemetry back to Apple with the aim of working out if these shutdown issues are related to the controlled ambient air thing. If Apple can find a software fix, it will issue one. Otherwise, there might be another recall if indeed this is found to be Apple’s fault.